TONY CONRAD - 'TEN YEARS ALIVE ON THE INFINITE PLAIN'

Formats

• SV049CD - 2xCDs

  855985006840

• SV049 - 2xLPs

  855985006833

Details

Ten Years Alive On The Infinite Plain is the quintessential work of artist/filmmaker/composer Tony Conrad. Comprised of both film installation and minimalist score for amplified strings, Ten Years leaps across genre and medium to connect his revolutionary structural filmmaking with the experiments in long-duration sound that Conrad had begun in the 1960s as part of the Theatre of Eternal Music. “Ten Years began with image before sound,” writes Andrew Lampert, “a row of quadruple projections arranged side-by-side, all the shuffling stripes cascading into each other. Over the next two hours the music throbbed and the projectors incrementally shifted inwards, their beams gradually uniting to form one pulsating, overlapping picture.” For its 1972 premiere at New York’s The Kitchen, Ten Years included Conrad on violin as well as Rhys Chatham and Laurie Spiegel performing on instruments of the composer’s own making. Chatham played the Long String Drone—a 6-foot long strip of wood with bass strings, electric pickup, tuning keys, tape, rubber band and metal hardware— while Spiegel carried out an arrhythmic bass pulse throughout. Superior Viaduct is honored to present this previously unreleased recording of Ten Years Alive On The Infinite Plain’s breathtaking premier performance. As Chatham recounts in the liner notes, “When I first listened to this recording after not hearing it for over 40 years, it transported me back to the early Kitchen and the heyday of early minimalism, played outside the Dream Syndicate.”

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VARIOUS - 'AMERICAN EPIC: THE BEST OF BLUES'

Formats

• TMR457 - LP

  813547024251

Details

Early geniuses of Delta Blues - Robert Johnson, Geeshie Wiley & Elvie Thomas, Son House, Charley Patton and many more have been painstakingly remastered using a mix of analog and digital technology for a hybrid sound that is simultaneously contemporary, immediate but still completely true-to-form. Single LP with single pocket tip-on jacket with soft touch finish

Tracks

SIDE A
1. Cross Road Blues by Robert Johnson
2. On the Road Again by Memphis Jug Band
3. Louis Collins by Mississippi John Hurt
4. Sittin' On Top of the World by Mississippi Sheiks
5. ?Tain?t Nobody's Business If I Do (Part 1) by Frank Stokes
6. Down the Dirt Road Blues by Charley Patton
7. My Black Mama (Parts 1 & 2) by Son House
8. Walk Right In by Cannon's Jug Stompers
9. The Panama Limited by Bukka White


SIDE B
1. Last Kind Words Blues by Geeshie Wiley & Elvie Thomas
2. Cottonfield Blues (Part 2) by Garfield Akers
3. Tallahatchie River Blues by Mattie Delaney
4. Mama 'Tain't Long fo? Day by Blind Willie McTell
5. Future Blues by Willie Brown
6. Cool Drink of Water Blues by Tommy Johnson
7. Cypress Grove Blues by Skip James
8. Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground by Blind Willie Johnson

Press

BBC Documentary 'American Epic' premiere May 2017

Audio & Video

VARIOUS - 'AMERICAN EPIC: THE BEST OF COUNTRY'

Formats

• TMR458 - LP

  813547024268

Details

Early champions of Country Music - The Carter Family, Uncle Dave Macon, the Massey Family, Jimmie Rodgers and many more - have been painstakingly remastered using a mix of analog and digital technology for a hybrid sound that is simultaneously contemporary, immediate but still completely true-to-form. Single LP with single pocket tip-on jacket with soft touch finish

Tracks

SIDE A 1. Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow by The Carter Family
2. If the River Was Whiskey by Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers
3. The Coo-Coo BirD by Clarence Ashley 4. Waiting For A Train by Jimmie Rodgers 5. Henry Lee by Dick Justice 6. Sail Away Ladies by Uncle Dave Macon and His Fruit Jar Drinkers 7. I Wish I Was A Mole in the Ground by Bascom Lamar Lundsford 8. Stackalee by Frank Hutchison
SIDE B
1. Peg and Awl by Carolina Tar Heels
2. Blues in A Bottle by Prince Albert Hunt?s Texas Ramblers
3. Ladies On the Steamboat by Burnett and Rutherford
4. Country Blues by Dock Boggs
5. Brown Skin Gal (Down the Lane) by Massey Family
6. I Am Bound For The Promised Land by Alfred G. Karnes
7. I Get My Whiskey From Rockingham by Earl Johnson and His Clodhoppers
8. The Lost Child by Stripling Brothers

Press

BBC Documentary 'American Epic' premiere May 2017

Audio & Video

MISSISSIPPI JOHN HURT - 'AMERICAN EPIC: THE BEST OF MISSISSIPPI JOHN HURT'

Formats

• TMR459 - LP

  813547024275

Details

Blues fingerpicking guitarist, singer and sharecropper Mississippi John Hurt was born in the heart of Mississippi Hill Country, along the veiny tributaries of the great American river. His moving renditions of “Frankie” and “Spike Driver Blues” were included in Harry Smith’s American Anthology of Folk Music in 1952 and were vitally influential on the Greenwich Village folk music revival of the 1960s as well as John Fahey’s development of the American Primitive Guitar genre. Single LP with single pocket tip-on jacket with soft touch finish

Tracks

SIDE A
1. Frankie
2. Ain?t No Tellin?
3. Spike Driver Blues
4. Avalon Blues
5. Louis Collins
6. Candy Man Blues
7. Stack O' Lee Blues


SIDE B
1. Praying On The Old Camp Ground
2. Blue Harvest Blues
3. Got the Blues Can?t be Satisfied
4. Big Leg Blues
5. Nobody's Dirty Business
6. Blessed Be The Name

Press

BBC Documentary 'American Epic' premiere May 2017

Audio & Video

THE CARTER FAMILY - 'AMERICAN EPIC: THE BEST OF THE CARTER FAMILY'

Formats

• TMR460 - LP

  813547024282

Details

The Carter Family, a family vocal group from Appalachian Virginia, were the most impactful discovery of talent scout Ralph Peer and the first vocal group to become country music stars. Apart from the beautiful harmonies that can only come from kin, Mother Maybelle Carter pioneered “scratch” style guitar picking, a clever synthesis of autoharp, banjo and guitar picking, and for years served as a matriarchal figure in the Grand Ole Opry. Single LP with single pocket tip-on jacket with soft touch finish

Tracks

SIDE A
1. Lonesome Valley
2. The Poor Orphan Child
3. Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow
4. The Wandering Boy
5. Wildwood Flower
6. The Foggy Mountain Top
7. The CannonBall
8. Worried Man Blues


SIDE B
1. Engine One-Forty-Three
2. Keep On the Sunny Side
3. Sweet Fern
4. John Hardy Was a Desperate Little Man
5. Anchored In Love
6. I Will Never Marry
7. When the World?s On Fire

Press

BBC Documentary 'American Epic' premiere May 2017

Audio & Video

LEAD BELLY - 'AMERICAN EPIC: THE BEST OF LEAD BELLY'

Formats

• TMR461 - LP

  813547024299

Details

Louisiana delta native Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter is the master of twelve-string blues guitar. His story is one of high-highs and low-lows, from serving stints in prison after killing a man in a fight for a woman’s heart, but then eventually earning early release by entertaining his fellow prison-mates and penning a song for the governor, thus cementing his reputation of singing his way out of prison. Folklorists John and Alan Lomax were early supporters that brought Lead Belly to the attention of Ivy Leaguers as well as a European audience. His songs have been widely covered by artists such as Elvis, Nirvana, Johnny Cash, and the Grateful Dead. Single LP with single pocket tip-on jacket with soft touch finish

Tracks

SIDE A
1. Mr. Tom Hughes? Town
2. C. C. Rider
3. You Can?t Lose Me, Charlie
4. Kansas City Papa
5. Death Letter Blues, Part 1
6. Death Letter Blues, Part 2
7. Fort Worth and Dallas Blues


SIDE B
1. Bull Cow
2. Ox Drivin? Blues
3. Shorty George
4. You Don?t Know My Mind
5. Matchbox Blues
6. My Baby Quit Me
7. Baby Don?t You Love Me No More

Press

BBC Documentary 'American Epic' premiere May 2017

Audio & Video

BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON - 'AMERICAN EPIC: THE BEST OF BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON'

Formats

• TMR462 - LP

  813547024312

Details

Texas slide guitarist and gospel bluesman Blind Willie Johnson recorded only 30 songs over the course of his life as a preacher and street performer. Even so, the savvy combination of his gritty and powerful “chest voice” singing style coupled with his mastery of slide guitar (some report he regularly used a knife as a slide) has given him a notably influential legacy, specifically with later bluesmen Howlin’ Wolf and Robert Johnson. His tune “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” was selected for Carl Sagan’s Voyager probe Golden Record, the Library of Congress as well as the National Recording Registry. Single LP with single pocket tip-on jacket with soft touch finish

Tracks

SIDE A
1. John the Revelator
2. It's Nobody's Fault But Mine
3. If I Had My Way, I'd Tear the Building Down
4. God Moves on the Water
5. The Soul of a Man
6. I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole
7. Church, I?m Fully Saved Today
8. Let Your Light Shine on Me


SIDE B
1. Mother's Children Have a Hard Time
2. Lord, I Just Can't Keep from Crying
3. Trouble Will Soon Be Over
4. Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed
5. Bye and Bye I?M Goin? to See the King
6. Praise God I'm Satisfied
7. Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning
8. Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground

Press

BBC Documentary 'American Epic' premieres May 17

Audio & Video

MEMPHIS JUG BAND - 'AMERICAN EPIC: THE BEST OF MEMPHIS JUG BAND'

Formats

• TMR463 - LP

  813547024312

Details

The Memphis Jug Band, most active from 1926 into the 1950s, revolved around guitarist, harmonica player and singer Will Shade and featured a wide variety of instrumentation including harmonica, kazoo, fiddle, mandolin, guitar, piano, washboard and, of course, jug. They recorded more songs than any pre-war jug band and as a result, were key in developing the jug band tradition and format. Single LP with single pocket tip-on jacket with soft touch finish

Tracks

SIDE A
1. Stealin' Stealin'
2. On the Road Again
3. Cocaine Habit Blues
4. Lindberg Hop
5. Newport News Blues
6. K.C. Moan
7. He's In The Jailhouse Now
8. Sometimes I Think I Love You


SIDE B
1. Fourth Street Mess Around
2. You May Leave, But This Will Bring You Back
3. What's The Matter
4. Aunt Caroline Dyer Blues
5. Memphis Shakedown
6. Whitewash Station Blues
7.Insane Crazy Blues

Press

BBC Documentary 'American Epic' premieres May 17

Audio & Video

FUCKED UP - 'LIVE AT THIRD MAN RECORDS'

Formats

• TMR427 - LP

  813547023162

Details

Fucked Up is a rare band. They’re a mutant strain of post-hardcore, arenapunk super-talents capable of reworking the strange and the beautiful into something cohesive, but never at the expense of their signature, addictive, furious entropy. They are truly a blitzkrieg of song and lyric. Is it work-shy and lazy to call a live record whose songs fl ow seamlessly into one another “epic?” What if every track is a battering ram of rabid guitar, fugitive vox, death match bass and roaring drums? No matter how you dice it… one word won’t ever be enough to explain a band like Fucked Up. All substitutions will pale in comparison to the experience itself. That goes for every blurb and every pixelated cell phone video out there. But…our record does the show justice. Fucked Up got their start as many often do, making the rounds on punk and DIY circuits in Toronto, around Canada and later into the USA. Punk is a genre known for its velocity, brevity and politics, although here we have an almost complete inversion of those core traits: songs don’t race the clock, mythology and storytelling weaving fully realized narratives, and a bipartisan set with a 100% approval rating.

Tracks

1. Year of the Rat
2. David Comes to Life
3. Son the Father
4. I Hate Summer
5. Year of the Ox
6. California Cold

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SPECTRE FOLK - 'VOL: 4'

Formats

• VB05 - LP

  655037000518

• VB05CD - CD

  655037000525

Details

“Spectre Folk’s latest Vol. 4 evokes history and journeys, both in leader / main songwriter Pete Nolan’s travelogues of places and experiences around the world, and in the band’s reverential nods to musical history / tips of the hat to psych-swirlers of the past. Their first full length since 2012’s Ancient Storm, Vol. 4 heaps more generous servings of layered, lavalamp-drip guitars, lethargic riffery and choogling sunstare moments both epic and subtle. Nolan, now relocated to South Carolina these days, still directs his song energy through and with a band of prime players: Aaron Mullan (Tall Firs / Hallogallo), Mark Ibold (Pavement / Dustdevils), Peter Meehan (Lucky Peach zine) and Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), who despite geographic distance still churn out a cohesive and gorgeous collection of inventive and expansive sounds. “Begin the Mothership” creeps in with drifty vibe and imagery of the 13th Floor Elevators’ guitarist Tommy Hall in his trough days praying to a Mickey Mouse poster on acid in San Francisco, slowly giving way to an avalanche of cosmic guitars, while “Golden Gooj” revamps a more barren tune from an old Spectre CDR release into a watery raftride down a slow river with Michael Rother’s flanged electric guitar leading the way. The easier-going moments of Spectre Folk circa-2017 offer among the most colorful and rich highlights of this new outing. “Bremsstrahlung” evokes some delicate David Crosby guitar work adrift on a bed of hazy sunset drone, while Shelley’s propulsive drums lead the way through the heavier burners of the record, “Action Ray” and “We’re So Tired,” the latter a frantic melange of Here Comes The Warm Jets-style humidity and wah wah splatter. A sonic celebration of good wine, sunlight, wanderlust, and players whose kinship and shared vocabulary move this latest spectral event into the zone of bliss.” —Brian Turner, WFMU

Tracks

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BIKINI KILL - 'NEW RADIO EP'

Formats

• BK014 - 7"

Details

***A reissue of BIKINI KILL's New Radio 7" EP. The single features the most well known version of their song "Rebel Girl" as well as the title track and "Demirep." The songs were recorded in April 1993 at Avast Studios in Seattle, WA. The session was engineered by John JOHN GOODMANSON and produced by JOAN JETT. Jett also played second guitar and contributed backup vocals. KATHLEEN sang lead, BILL played guitar, TOBI played drums, and KATHI played bass. Joan Jett appears courtesy of Blackheart Records. Pressed on colored vinyl. 

Tracks

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GRACE SINGS SLUDGE - 'LIFE WITH DICK'

Formats

• EMP030 - LP

  655035073019

• EMP030CD - CD

  655035013022

Details

Life With Dick is the new album by Grace Sings Sludge (The Sandwitches, The Fresh and Onlys). It’s the continuation of a world Grace Cooper began illustrating as one of the lead songwriters of the San Francisco band The Sandwitches, and on her previous three collections of solo home recordings (released as limited run cassette tapes). As with the other solo albums, Cooper does the artwork for the album. Her delicate yet disturbing pen and watercolor creations are the perfect accompaniment to her songs, as though they’ve emerged from the same troubled dreams. Though understated, a sense of urgency permeates this record. Cooper’s voice dances through the songs with a chameleon quality that’s sultry and commanding on “In Spite of Doom” and desperate, vulnerable and sharp on “Can’t Play” and “Everlasting Arms.” Her lyrics contain the weariness of giving in to a love requited, and the unsettling realities of maintaining that love. In some pieces it seems she no longer knows where to direct her endless yearning. She observes on “Bad Timing Pt. 2”: “Two boats they don’t meet up in the night, they glide by each other and forever out of sight... they might just be the lucky ones.” The spookiness of Cooper’s sound—a sound influential in some of The Sandwitches’ best songs like ”Joe Says” and “In the Garden”—is still present here and especially on the darker second side. Piercing guitars and heartbeat drums on “Everlasting Arms” warn that “something’s growing in the basement” and something comes “from within.” The recording quality of this release is raw but it is far from being a “garage record.” It is a recording brought down from the attic, with no date and with no intended audience, and is best listened to alone. 

Tracks

1. A Man Doesn?t Want 2. Runaway (Bad Timing) 3. Bad Timing Pt. 2 4. Can?t Play 5. In Spite Of Doom 6. Everlasting Arms 7. U.C.B. 8. Dedicated 2

Press

Latest solo album by member of The Sandwitches is raw, dark, and vulnerable

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VARIOUS - 'HARDLY RELEASED'

Formats

• HAR100 - MC

  0098787310047

Details

*SHIPS FOR 2ND JUNE* Often referred to as Sub Pop's "sister label," Hardly Art is an offshoot of Sub Pop designed to spotlight emerging talent. While the label's initial focus was local when it started up in 2007, over the past decade it has expanded beyond the Cascade region to welcome artists from all over the United States and abroad to a roster that has grown increasingly varied and eclectic, encompassing the sounds of garage rock, post-punk, surf rock, power pop, electronic, and other debatably useful genre descriptors. With the goal of cultivating a stable of vital, young, and relatively undiscovered bands, Hardly Art journeyed underground while a booming Sub Pop stayed above the surface (though both operate out of a shared office space in downtown Seattle). Since its inception and immediate worldwide reception as a paradigm-shifting, taste-making powerhouse (wink), Hardly Art has expanded its staff and broadened its purview along the way to include dubiously profitable ventures like reissues, EPs, one-off seven inches, and cassettes. Now, Hardly Art will try its hand at another experiment: a compilation to celebrate its 10th anniversary. Hardly Released: Bedroom Recordings, Demos, Rarities, Unreleased, and Widely Ignored Material—available June 2nd on cassette and digital formats—makes a strong case for Hardly Art’s sonic diversity. Spanning a decade of recordings, the seventeen tracks of Hardly Released culls together a wide-ranging assortment of songs from the label’s history, including a little-heard gem from Hardly Art’s inaugural signing (Arthur & Yu) and a tune from Chastity Belt’s I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone sessions, the label’s most recent release. The full list of contributors includes Colleen Green, The Dutchess & the Duke, Fergus & Geronimo, Gazebos, Grave Babies, Hausu, Hunx & His Punx, IAN SWEET, Jacuzzi Boys, Jenn Champion, La Luz, The Moondoggies, Protomartyr, Seapony, and Shannon and the Clams. Bedroom recordings, demos, rarities, unreleased, and widely ignored material!

Tracks

01. Hunx & His Punx - Baby of the Band 2:53
02. Colleen Green - Oh Baby 3:15
03. Protomartyr - 580 Memories 2:35
04. La Luz - Believe My Eyes 3:00
05. Chastity Belt - Dull 4:27
06. Gazebos - Tapper 4:06
07. Grave Babies - Kill Me 1:57
08. IAN SWEET - Bug Museum 4:57
09. Hausu - The Haze 2:35
10.
The Dutchess & the Duke - I Steal You (demo) 2:11
11. Jenn Champion - Someone New 3:24
12. Seapony - Punk Song (demo) 2:23
13. Shannon & the Clams - Mines of Io 4:29
14. The Moondoggies - Roll Away 4:03
15. Jacuzzi Boys - Fake Flowers 3:50
16. Arthur & Yu - Pilot?s Out 2:38
17. Fergus & Geronimo - Powerful Lovin? (live) 4:22

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